Hillary goes out with a bang, Boxer enraged by Rand attack, Up next: John Kerry, Reid/McConnell near filibuster deal, Reid's uneasy history with NRA, Rothenberg: Reid bio needs rewrite

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HILLARY GOES OUT WITH A BANG – Lois Romano writes for the hometown paper: “It was probably not the way she would have chosen to go out. Wednesday’s combative Senate hearing on the Benghazi attacks was one of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s last, most high-profile public appearances of her time at Foggy Bottom. In a few days, one of the most famous women on the planet will step off the public stage for the first time in 30 years — and she’s not going quietly. She choked up, she raised her voice, she took full responsibility for the death of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others, and she was defiant. When Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) pressed her on who knew what when, she slapped him down with a raised voice: ‘With all due respect, four Americans were dead. What difference at this point does it make?’

-- “This was no gauzy farewell tour, no clubby appearance before her former Senate colleagues, although most thanked her for her service. She will be back Thursday to introduce her likely successor, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), before the committee. Left unsaid, however: this is likely not her ultimate act. Already, the question — will she run for president? — follows her around relentlessly. And if there were any consolation for Clinton on Wednesday, it doesn’t seem that the American public is holding the former first lady responsible for the death of four Americans in Libya, even as some Republican senators tried their level best to pin it on her.” http://politi.co/XYENUS

-- Large photos of a bespectacled Clinton also appear on A1 of both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. The Journal breaks out her now-memorable quote: “We had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they’d go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make?” Front pages:http://bit.ly/Y0u8cj and http://bit.ly/Y0ubVA

JOHNSON TO CLINTON: YOU FAILED – Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), whose question prompted Clinton’s “four dead Americans” line, doesn’t let the outgoing secretary get the last word. He writes in a USA Today op-ed today: “When I questioned her about the misinformation disseminated for days by the administration, most notably by Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice on Sunday news programs five days after the attack, she asked, "What difference does it make?" If you don't expeditiously debrief the people who witnessed the attack, how can you understand who initiated it, what weapons they used and who may have been involved? How do you initiate a proper response if you don't know what transpired? How do you move properly to protect other American assets and people in the region? How do you know what failures occurred, so that you can immediately correct them, if you have not debriefed the very victims of those failures? And lastly, how do you tell the truth to the American people if you don't know the facts?” http://usat.ly/10TTcaj

--Sen. Barbara Boxer tells MSNBC’s Rev. Al Sharpton last night she walked out of the hearing after Sen. Rand Paul told Clinton he would have fired her if he had been president. Starts at the 6:10 mark: http://nbcnews.to/WWtvOl and http://politi.co/XylpeF

JOHN KERRY UP NEXT – The Massachusetts Democrat, President Obama’s pick to succeed Clinton at State, testifies at 10 today before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he chairs. Hart 216. He’s expected to sail through the confirmation process.

REID, McCONNELL NEAR FILIBUSTER DEAL – POLITICO’s Manu Raju reports: “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are closing in on a deal that would avert the ‘nuclear option’ on the filibuster but would pare back its use in several instances, sources said Wednesday. No deal is final, sources said, but a bipartisan accord to avert a messy partisan showdown could be announced as soon as Thursday. The exact contents of the package remain murky, but Reid is expected to win GOP concessions to speed debate during a handful of occasions, including to end filibusters intended to prevent debate from beginning on bills.” http://politi.co/WgLB0Z

CANARY IN THE COAL MINE ON GUNS: MANCHIN – The NYT’s Jeremy W. Peters writes that talk of stricter gun control has stirred unease in places like Beckley, W.Va.: “[B]efore Senator Joe Manchin III invited a group of 15 businessmen and community leaders to lunch last week to discuss the topic, he had only a vague idea of how anxious many of his supporters were. ‘How many of you all believe that there is a movement to take away the Second Amendment?’ he asked. About half the hands in the room went up. Despite his best attempts to reassure them — ‘I see no movement, no talk, no bills, no nothing’ — they remained skeptical. ‘We give up our rights one piece at a time,’ a banker named Charlie Houck told the senator. If there is a path to new gun laws, it has to come through West Virginia and a dozen other states with Democratic senators like Mr. Manchin who are confronting galvanized constituencies that view any effort to tighten gun laws as an infringement. As Congress considers what, if any, laws to change, Mr. Manchin has become a barometer among his colleagues, testing just how far they might be able to go without angering voters.” http://nyti.ms/Un4oY7

GUN CONTROL COULD SPLIT OBAMA, REID – Paul Kane writes in the Washington Post: “The success of President Obama’s starkly liberal second-term agenda will rest largely on the shoulders of Senate Majority leader Harry M. Reid, who has been a rock-solid political ally and a valued legislative tactician for Obama during his first term. But for the first time since Obama became president four years ago, his political interests and Reid’s may be diverging. Not so much because there is huge disagreement on the president’s agenda, but because helping Obama may hurt vulnerable Democrats in the Senate. Reelected and unconcerned about ever having to face voters again, Obama seems determined to push a far-reaching agenda — on guns, climate change and gay rights, among other topics — that looks toward his presidential legacy. Reid (D-Nev.), significantly more encumbered, must worry about how to protect 20 Democratic-held Senate seats that will be up for grabs in 2014, while Republicans are defending only 14 spots. …

-- But Reid’s “uneasy” relationship with the NRA could also make him more open to tougher gun laws. “In March 2010, Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president of the NRA and the president’s gun-control nemesis, made a politically helpful appearance for Reid at the opening of a new shooting range in southern Nevada. LaPierre heaped praise on Reid, who was in deep trouble going into his reelection contest. ‘I also want to thank you, Senator, for your support every day at the federal level for the Second Amendment and for the rights of American gun owners,’ LaPierre said. But five months later, the NRA declined to endorse Reid, deciding instead to stay neutral in the election. Reid won but considered the NRA’s silence a betrayal. ‘He doesn’t forget,’ said one Reid adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe Reid’s reaction.

-- “A right-handed triggerman,[Reid] nailed two clay birds out of six shots fired at the 2010 event with LaPierre. The 2,900-acre shooting range outside Las Vegas that was the scene of the event was built largely through land-procurement legislation backed by Reid, along with $61 million in federal funding. … By spring of 2010, Reid’s national profile as one of the Democrats’ main combatants in Washington’s partisan wars had made him deeply unpopular in Nevada. Still, his campaign made a pitch to the NRA, touting his track record on guns and noting that opposing Reid would be a big mistake: Had Reid lost, he probably could have been succeeded as majority leader by Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) or Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), both of whom hold lifetime ‘F’ ratings from the NRA. … Reid’s camp believed a late-summer endorsement was coming from the NRA, which would have been a huge boost to the senator. Instead, the group issued a surprise non-endorsement in late August, citing Reid’s support for Obama’s Supreme Court justices as a reason to back away from LaPierre’s effusive praise for the senator.” http://wapo.st/WWvt0W

HOUSE PASSES DEBT CEILING BILL, SENATE TO FOLLOW – Jake Sherman reports for POLITICO: “The House overwhelmingly passed a bill Wednesday afternoon to allow the federal government to keep borrowing money until the middle of May, as Republicans attempt to defuse the debt ceiling as political issue. The legislation, which was unveiled last week at a House Republican retreat in Virginia, passed on a 285-144 vote. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Wednesday the Senate will pass the House bill without changes, noting that the legislation is ‘clean,’ meaning it contains no spending cuts. Republicans spent 2011 insisting on matching the debt ceiling with trillions of dollars in spending reductions. The White House has said it would not block the legislation from becoming law. …

-- “In theory, the bill would also pressure the Senate to pass a budget — something it hasn’t done in several years. Under the legislation, if either chamber fails to pass a budget by April 15, its members will not get paid.” http://politi.co/XYndjH

-- Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray pledged that Democrats will pass a budget resolution this year after failing to do so the past few years. http://politi.co/XxCCF5

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GOOD THURSDAY MORNING, JANUARY 24, 2013, and welcome to The Huddle, your play-by-play preview of the day’s congressional news. Send tips, suggestions, comments, complaints and corrections to swong@politico.com. If you don't already, please follow me on Twitter @scottwongDC.

My new followers include but are not limited to @Adrienne_Gildea and @ElizaRules.

TODAY IN CONGRESS – The House is out today and Friday. The Senate is in at 9:30 a.m. though no votes are currently scheduled.

New York Times, A1 lead, “EQUALITY AT THE FRONT LINE: PENTAGON IS SET TO LIFT BAN ON WOMEN IN COMBAT ROLES,” By Elizabeth Bumiller and Thom Shanker: “Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta is lifting the military’s official ban on women in combat, which will open up hundreds of thousands of additional front-line jobs to them, senior defense officials said Wednesday. The groundbreaking decision overturns a 1994 Pentagon rule that restricts women from artillery, armor, infantry and other such combat roles, even though in reality women have frequently found themselves in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, where more than 20,000 have served. As of last year, more than 800 women had been wounded in the two wars and more than 130 had died. … Women have long chafed under the combat restrictions and have increasingly pressured the Pentagon to catch up with the reality on the battlefield. The move comes as Mr. Panetta is about to step down from his post and would leave him with a major legacy after only 18 months in the job. …

--There appeared to be bipartisan support for the plan. “Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington and the chairwoman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, called it a ‘historic step for recognizing the role women have, and will continue to play, in the defense of our nation.’ Senator Kelly Ayotte, a New Hampshire Republican and a member of the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that she was pleased by the decision and said that it ‘reflects the increasing role that female service members play in securing our country.’” http://nyti.ms/Vumgis

ROTHENBERG: REID’S BIO NEEDS REWRITE – Stu Rothenberg writes in his column for Roll Call: “‘He has earned the trust of both Democrats and Republicans’ and has a ‘reputation for integrity and fairness,’ says the biography of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on his official Senate website. The self-congratulatory 1,566-word tribute, which includes praise from Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, and Parade magazine, also calls the Nevada Democrat a ‘consensus builder.’ But as Reid contemplates filibuster changes, and after the majority leader’s non-role in averting the fiscal cliff and his relatively recent nasty attacks on a couple of political opponents, his online bio needs a rewrite. If Reid really were a consensus builder who cared about getting things done, he would not have accused Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, of running a ‘dictatorship’ and of putting personal goals ahead of the good of the country.

-- “Reid’s criticism of Boehner came about four months after he said on the Senate floor that someone he refused to identify told him that the reason GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney had not released his income tax records was that Romney had not paid any federal income taxes in 10 years. Reid, 72, recently became Nevada’s longest-serving member of Congress and has always been partisan. I don’t know whether he has always been mean. But I do know that he has become increasingly selective in his memories, looking more and more hypocritical.” http://bit.ly/148GEee

BOEHNER: OBAMA OUT TO ‘ANNIHILATE’ GOP – Jonathan Easley reports for The Hill: “Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he believes the primary goal of President Obama’s second term is to ‘annihilate the Republican Party.’ ‘Given what we heard yesterday about the president’s vision for his second term, it’s pretty clear to me that he knows he can’t do any of that as long as the House is controlled by Republicans,’ Boehner said in a speech Tuesday to The Ripon Society. ‘So we’re expecting over the next 22 months to be the focus of this administration as they attempt to annihilate the Republican Party. And let me just tell you, I do believe that is their goal — to just shove us into the dustbin of history.’” http://bit.ly/V9l4zj

BARRASSO: HAGEL APOLOGY NOT ACCEPTED – Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) writes in the Wall Street Journal he’s not satisfied with Chuck Hagel’s apology for his “Jewish lobby” remark. “As a senator required to provide ‘advice and consent’ on his appointment, I recently asked Mr. Hagel about his comment. He apologized for it and explained that he was only commenting on the strength of the lobby. While I respect his apology, I can't respect his explanation. My national-security votes are based on America's national security—not lobbyists' issues, interests or intimidation. While Mr. Hagel's troublesome and insulting words matter, his policy positions matter even more. … Time after time, Mr. Hagel has shown himself to be out of the mainstream on important issues related to national security. In each case, later events have shown he was wrong. When we are faced with unpredictable national-security crises, we can't afford to have a secretary of defense who has unpredictable judgment.” http://on.wsj.com/WPB3Ux

WEDNESDAY’S TRIVIA WINNER – Shane Larson and Todd Hauptli correctly answered within seconds of each other so we’re calling it a tie: George Washington and Lyndon B. Johnson were the first and last American presidents to take the oath of office outside of Washington, D.C. Washington took his first oath on the balcony of Federal Hall in New York. Johnson was sworn in on Air Force One at Love Field in Dallas after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

TODAY’S TRIVIA – Several lawmakers seemed to encourage a possible 2016 presidential run for Hillary Clinton during her visit to the Hill Wednesday. Jason Mehta asks: How many secretaries of State have gone on to be president and who are they? First to correctly answer gets a mention in the next day’s Huddle. Email me at swong@politico.com.

GET HUDDLE emailed to your Blackberry, iPhone or other mobile device each morning. Just enter your email address where it says “Sign Up.” http://www.politico.com/huddle/

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